THE GOSPEL AND THE MIND: RECOVERING AND SHAPING THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE, by Bradley G. Green

A Brief Book Summary from Books At a Glance

by Steve West

 

Table of Contents

Introduction
1 Creation and the Importance of the Past
2 The Centrality of a Telos to All Things
3 Understanding and the Cross
4 Words, Language, and Modern Culture
5 Toward a Christian Understanding of Words
6 The Moral Nature of Knowledge and the Human Heart
Epilogue

 

Summary

 

Introduction

The gospel is a set of historical events: it is something Christ has done for us, but he accomplished it outside of ourselves. Whenever the gospel takes hold in society, there is growth in learning, culture, and the life of the mind. Christ died to comprehensively redeem us, and that includes our minds (which are hostile to him apart from grace). It is in the Christian worldview that we find the presuppositions needed for recovering the intellectual life, and also a unique perspective on what the intellectual life should be. Many people fail to appreciate their earlier opportunities in education, but later in life they also realize that there was something fundamentally missing from what they were taught. Often, great thinkers, books, historical events, and our rich cultural history are ignored. Only in Christianity do we find the truth about God, humanity, and the world which is the precondition for genuine understanding. God’s providence is over all things, including the life of the mind, and it is only in his light that we can have understanding.

Culture flourishes on religious roots, and you cannot sever culture from the root and still have it grow. “Without certain key theological realities and commitments, the cultivation of an enduring intellectual and cultural life becomes increasingly difficult, if not impossible.” When the gospel is not valued, we see disintegration in culture and the life of the mind. All intellectual discourse is fundamentally theological, and so it is essential to have a uniting theological vision. If God is rejected, the rationale and foundation for knowledge is denied, and fragmentation results. Liberal arts are languishing because there is no uniting and inspiring vision for them; they do not have a framework for truth and knowledge. The gospel leads to a vibrant intellectual life and the development of the liberal arts. Without a unified community—like the church—and a belief in the coherence of history, there is no community or narrative on which to build, or develop, or think. Secular visions and accountings cannot ground meaning or knowledge. It is at the cross and with the Christian worldview that the life of the mind is possible and grounded.

 

Chapter 1: Creation and the Importance of the Past

One main reason for the decay and neglect of the life of the mind in our contemporary society is a profound misunderstanding of creation and history. The reality of history and creation reminds us that some things simply exist, and they exist outside of our wills and minds. Without a Christian understanding of creation and history, there is no adequate grounding for the intellectual life. Truth, epistemology, and metaphysics are inseparable, and if it is denied that there is an inherent order in the universe, then there is no plan for history, and therefore no compelling reason to pay attention to the past. The doctrine of creation teaches us that there is a givenness to the way things are, and we are called to work within it and understand it. The world around us is neither illusory nor chaotic. Christianity sees the world as good but corrupted; human beings are sinful. The goodness of creation provides impetus for its study. Of the utmost importance in the Christian vision is the distinction between Creator and creation. Only God has exhaustive knowledge and perfectly interprets every fact, but we can know things truly because he has designed us to know himself, ourselves, and the world.

Scripture often calls us to remember God’s acts in the past, and the gospel itself concerns past events that provide meaning for both the present and future. Given the incarnation where the Son of God became a man in time-space history, we see the importance of understanding God’s revelation as historical. Knowing the past requires memory, and memory is essential for understanding. When we diminish the past we diminish memory, which inevitably results in a loss of our self-understanding. Without focused attention on the past we will become less human; we cannot help but feel we are losing someone when their memory fades. Our contemporary academic institutions seem to place little value on the past, and often actively disparage it. Christians need to be intentional about passing on history and great works, so that we can have greater understanding and so that we can avoid the faddish errors of our contemporary age. . . .

[To continue reading this summary, please see below....]